On November 24, 2024, Japan held a memorial service at its UNESCO website, the Sado Gold Mines, in Niigata to commemorate labourers who labored in it. South Korean officers who had been invited boycotted the occasion. As a substitute, on the next day, they held their very own ceremony remembering Koreans who labored the mines as compelled labourers beneath Japanese colonial rule.
The Sado Gold Mines, which had been inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Website on July 27, have turn into one more battleground over the historical past of Japanese colonial exploitation of Koreans and efforts to whitewash it. Japan has lengthy resisted recognising the wartime discrimination and compelled labour endured by Koreans and different overseas staff, together with at industrial websites listed as World Heritage in 2015 beneath the title “Websites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution”.
In each cases, Japan has argued that wartime historical past is irrelevant to the heritage worth of those websites. Although it promised UNESCO to inform the “full historical past”, the model Japan presents is distorted by colonial apologetics, refusing to recognise Koreans staff mobilised throughout the conflict as victims of overseas compelled labour.
What’s notably troubling is the tolerance of this revisionism by each UNESCO and the present South Korean authorities, which appear keen to miss the erasure of Korean victims for the sake of fostering higher diplomatic relations.
When Japan’s Meiji industrial websites had been inscribed in 2015, the nation initially agreed to current the historical past of “numerous Koreans and others” who had been “introduced towards their will and compelled to work beneath harsh situations”.
However shortly after, then-International Minister Fumio Kishida downplayed the concession, stating that “compelled to work” didn’t imply “compelled labour”. The argument hinged on the authorized fiction that Koreans, as topics of the Japanese Empire, might be legally conscripted for wartime labour beneath sure situations.
For the reason that opening of an info centre in Tokyo in 2020, meant to teach the general public on this historical past, Japan has as an alternative promoted a whitewashed narrative. It claims that Korean and Japanese labourers labored collectively in concord, however pointedly avoids the time period “Koreans”, whereas systematically referring to Koreans as “staff from the Korean Peninsula”.
This refined erasure denies Korean nationality and echoes the colonial time period “hantoujin” (peninsula folks), which was used to strip Koreans of their id throughout colonial rule. At the moment, Koreans as colonial topics didn’t have the complete rights of Japanese residents – one other reality that’s glossed over.
The centre additionally omits essential paperwork, reminiscent of testimonies from Korean labourers and Japanese supervisors, which doc how Koreans had been subjected to discrimination, bodily punishment, compelled contract extensions, and harmful work situations.
Japan’s strategy to the Sado Gold Mines, the place no less than 1,519 Koreans labored as compelled labourers beneath inhumane situations throughout World Struggle II, follows an identical path. In its supplementary info to UNESCO, Japan constantly refers to “staff from the Korean Peninsula” with out acknowledging the compelled nature of their labour. It even suggests the work setting was “non-discriminatory”, blatantly ignoring historic proof.
Throughout the World Heritage inscription ceremony, a Japanese consultant introduced that an exhibition encompassing Korean labourers had been put in place and that annual memorials for “all staff” on the mines can be carried out. South Korea’s consultant optimistically claimed this may assist alleviate considerations about Japan’s failure to deal with Korean experiences on the industrial websites inscribed in 2015.
Nonetheless, the exhibition – entitled “The Lifetime of Mine Employees Together with These from the Korean Peninsula” – fails to acknowledge the compelled and inhumane situations Korean labourers confronted. By grouping their experiences with Japanese staff, Japan successfully denies the situations of overseas compelled labour and the documented experiences of victims. Equally, the memorial held on November 24 did not acknowledge Korean compelled labour.
Quite than providing a second of recognition, the memorial service dangers additional entrenching a revisionist narrative that means all staff on the mines confronted related hardships in help of Japan’s conflict effort. This type of misrepresentation is extra dangerous than neglecting to carry a memorial in any respect. It denies the voices of victims and undermines the continued battle for historic recognition.
Japan’s persistent denial of wartime compelled labour has lengthy been a barrier to bettering relations with South Korea. But, the present South Korean authorities has demonstrated that prioritising diplomatic relations takes priority over addressing historic wrongs and colonial trauma. In a bid to promote the Sado inscription as a diplomatic win, South Korea’s Ministry of International Affairs even altered the phrases “all staff” to “Korean staff” in a abstract of the official Japanese assertion at UNESCO launched to the Korean public.
This short-sighted strategy dangers additional undermining South Korea-Japan relations in the long term. Public help for the present South Korean authorities is terribly low and the following authorities might should undo a lot of this work to regain public belief.
As international discussions more and more concentrate on decolonisation and inclusive narratives, it’s alarming to see UNESCO tolerate Japan’s neglect of Korean victims’ voices. Whereas it issued a press release in 2021 urging Japan to honour its dedication to recognise the historical past of Korean and different compelled labour on the Meiji industrial websites, it has but to point any intention of revoking the websites’ World Heritage standing for non-compliance.
Regardless of this unresolved subject, UNESCO inscribed the Sado Gold Mines, thus undermining its personal credibility and reinforcing historic revisionism. It ought to have withheld the Sado Gold Mines’ inscription till Japan corrected the historic erasure at beforehand designated websites.
All of those developments spotlight the significance of understanding East Asia’s trendy historical past on the world stage. If we’re severe about decolonisation, we should strategy these histories with a broader, transregional perspective, recognising patterns of colonial legacies past the Euro-American context.
By elevating consciousness of various types of imperialism and their enduring impact, we will empower folks worldwide to higher recognise and problem the colonial crimes and exploitation which can be unfolding in entrance of us in different components of the world right now.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
